Still looking for some comprehensive sources but from the Forza forums and an assortment of articles out there I'm seeing some truly insane prices for Forza 5 cars:

For 2,334 Tokens you can buy either a McLaren P1 or Ferrari Enzo. A Token pack costing £15.99 will cover either of those cars (you can buy packs of Tokens at the following prices: 100 is £0.79, 575 is £3.99, 1250 is £7.99, 2700 is £15.99, 8000 is £39.99 and 20,000 is £64.99), so with the 2700 Token pack that's one vehicle for £13.82. But there's much more expensive cars in Forza Motorsport 5, but the more Tokens you buy, the cheaper they are. If you bought the 20,000 pack (costing £64.99) the McLaren would cost just £7.58.

From the same pricing, a Veyron Super Sport will set you back £13.00, and the most expensive car in the game, the Lotus E21 will cost an incredible £32.50. The smaller the pack of Tokens, the more expensive they are, so the worst possible way of picking up the game's most expensive car would be to buy 100 of the 100 Token packs, bagging you the exclusive 10,000 Token Lotus E21 for a cool £79.

On the upper end, our goal is to make the truly elite cars feel really exclusive. As a result, the top-end cars in Forza Motorsport 5 will cost significantly more in tokens than they would if you earned them with in-game credits. In the past, expensive cars could be purchased with very few tokens (not in proportion with the amount of effort required to earn the cars through racing), thus allowing players willing to spend tokens to jump straight into the most exclusive cars in the game. Now, we’ve made token prices equal to in-game credit prices. For those who want to spend some extra real money and get those exclusive cars, they’ll have that option, but they will no longer devalue the hard work of those who earned the cars through racing and building up in-game credits. Either way, expensive cars will have real rarity.

And all of this is after they removed the ability to free drive with any car, as well as most of the ways you'd get cars and money and discounts in previous titles.

Originally Posted by Cipher Soze

So, people seem to be happy/thrilled with the audio-visual and physics in the game. And I've got to say I'm still tempted by the increase in layers in the livery editor.

BUT
Decimated car and track count, and the whole 'built from the ground up' talk is nothing but PR hot air.
No Public lobbies
No Clubs
No gifting of cars or paints (say goodbye to collabs)
Free Play has been stripped.
No Auction House or Storefront.
Tuning has been dumbed down to an extent ( engine and drive swaps )
No community leaderboards. ( offset somewhat by rivals leaderboards )
No affinity for car parts. ( WTF )
Intrusive monetizing offers which are eight times more expensive than FM4.

Whoever made these decisions about gameplay mechanics, let alone content, has a lot to answer for IMO. They have cut the community off at the knees.

(Note: There *is* free play support, but it seems to be limited)

Originally Posted by Seanspeed

After learning a bit more about how Forza 5 works, I must say, they definitely have made some changes that are, without a doubt, designed to encourage people to buy cars with real money to the detriment of the game experience.

Seems like earning potential and car prices haven't changed. That's the good news.

But these few things all combine to make a pretty big and noticeable difference:

- No cars unlocked as you level. There is no logical, game-enhancing reason this was taken out. Its something that most everyone enjoyed. Some tweaks could have been to the 'progression' of cars you unlocked, but certainly no one wanted the whole system taken out.

- Manufacturer affinity is gone. This was something that also could have used some tweaking, but was otherwise a very good idea. Before, you could basically get free upgrades quite quickly. That could have used changing. It was definitely too quick. But again, people liked the system and it didn't warrant taking out. The fact that you can use tokens to buy upgrades now makes it blatantly obvious what the intentions were here.

- Free Play no longer allows you to drive any car in the game. Before, while some cars were quite expensive, it didn't stop people from the enjoyment of driving them if they wanted to. You just wouldn't own the car, couldn't customize it or race it in career. This was a fantastic compromise, as you could test drive anything you wanted and even if you couldn't afford an expensive car you really liked, you could still get to experience it out on-track. With that gone, it really pushes at the car collector types to pay real money.

- No buying/selling paints/setups/vinyls. You can still make some money off of this, but there will clearly not be any sort of ecosystem built around this like before. No reason for this to have happened. People *loved* the way it was.

- Buying cars and upgrades, the game definitely treats 'car tokens' as an equally viable way of bartering. Every step of the way, prices are given in credits and tokens, with equal font size and all, even going as far as having a little pop-up menu to 'confirm' whether you're going to buy with credits or tokens.

It all amounts to a blatant attempt at encouraging people to spend more money. All at the detriment of the game from several important angles.

So I was wrong here guys for defending this. I didn't realize it was going to be that bad. Its definitely not like previous Forza's at all and is totally shameful.

This game sounds like pure evil. An early example of what we can expect for this new generation?

And does anybody have a comprehensive listing of car and token prices?

Token cost of all cars in the game comes to 168993
if bought at simplest token value cost of 8000 per $100 usd, that comes to $2200. you could probably bring it in a bit cheaper by buying the remaining balance with smaller amounts instead of the 8000 lot.
if bought at the least value cost of 1250 per $20 that comes to $2700.
cheapest overally brings it to $1690 with 100 tokens per dollar..

Your Turn 10 team continues to value the input of our Forza community, and we keep a careful eye on in-game data that shows how players progress through our games. Based on the numbers we’ve seen from our first week of FM5, as well as feedback we heard directly from you, we’re in the process of making some changes to the Forza Motorsport 5 economy. But, while we’re putting the final touches on that, we want to make sure everyone continues having a great time with Forza 5. So, the following programs are going into effect this week:

1) Starting this Friday we’re offering a 50 percent discount (credits & tokens) on every car in the game. This discount is available to all players. Every car, from the 1970 Nissan Datsun 510 to the 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO will be 50 percent off, so, if you’ve got your eye on something special on the car list, now’s the time to play and add them to your garage! This discount will be available between 12:01 a.m. Pacific on Friday, Nov. 29 and 11:59 p.m. Pacific on Sunday, Dec. 1.

2) If you are a Forza Motorsport 5 VIP member, you’ll receive the 2013 Lotus E21 grand prix car as a thank you. (Note: You must own Forza Motorsport 5 VIP membership to take advantage of this offer.) In addition to being one of the most radical and expensive cars in FM5, the E21 is also one of the quickest. For more on the E21, check out its entry on the Forza Motorsport 5 Cars page. This gift may take up to 24 hours or longer to be fulfilled in the game and, in order to receive your gift, you will need to back out to the main title screen with the orange McLaren P1 and then press “A” to log back in.

3) Those players who have already purchased the 2013 Lotus E21 as of today (Wednesday, November 27) will also receive the 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO as a further thank you. This gift may take up to 24 hours or longer to be fulfilled in the game and, in order to receive your gift, you will need to back out to the main title screen with the orange McLaren P1 and then press “A” to log back in.

4) For those players who have purchased the LaFerrari Car Pack or the Forza Motorsport 5 Car Pass we’ll gift the 2013 LaFerrari directly into your Forza Motorsport 5 garage. No need to purchase the car separately with in-game credits or tokens. (Note: In order to receive and use these gift cars, you’ll need to own either the LaFerrari Car Pack or the Forza Motorsport 5 Car Pass). This gift may take up to 24 hours or longer to be fulfilled in the game and, in order to receive your gift, you will need to back out to the main title screen with the orange McLaren P1 and then press “A” to log back in.

5) Finally, we’re dramatically increasing the credit payout available to all Forza players in December via Forza Rewards, our ongoing loyalty program that rewards players with credits and cars for playing Forza games. You’ll be able to redeem these rewards in December but here’s a tip: The higher your Tier level reaches before December rolls around, the better the rewards you’ll be able to redeem, so get your play time in now and level up!

Now, a word about tokens in the Forza Motorsport 5 Limited Edition. In our original description for Forza Motorsport 5’s Limited Edition, we told you that Limited Edition owners would get 1,250 in-game tokens, which we mistakenly said would be enough tokens to afford any car in the Forza 5. It isn’t. As a result, a number of you have pointed this out to us – that there are a number of cars in the game that cost more than 1,250 tokens to purchase.

We’re sorry. In order to make up for this discrepancy, we will soon be offering Forza Motorsport 5 Limited Edition owners the chance to download and own the car of their choice in the game. Players will be able to choose from any of the on-disc cars in Forza 5 and will be able redeem this offer on ForzaMotorsport.net via a dedicated page that will be available no later than December 16.

So pretty much every MS published launch game aside from Lococycle has this shit, right?

Forza was one of my favourite franchises on the last two xboxes. I wonít touch this shit with a ten foot pole. If this is what MS hopes to bring to console gaming, they can fuck right off.

This is not good for game design, this is not good for the majority of players. Itís predatory and - like other F2P mechanics in actually free games - it depends on a few whales to support the entire scheme, to the detriment of all players.

I'm a little unclear on this issue, Forza Horizon had car tokens, a few could be earned, but you were expected to buy them. That said, there was never an instance were I couldn't purchase a car down the road with winnings from races (online and off). Is that still the case? Or are some cars listed as "shipping with the game" but locked out because of these credits?

Just so I get that right, there's a single car DLC that costs you £32.50?

The smaller the pack of Tokens, the more expensive they are, so the worst possible way of picking up the game's most expensive car would be to buy 100 of the 100 Token packs, bagging you the exclusive 10,000 Token Lotus E21 for a cool £79.

^

And yes, you can get it with in-game currency. Paying real world money is NOT the only way to get these cars. Edit: Unless they are DLC cars that is. DLC cars need to be bought on the marketplace in real money, and then bought again with in-game currency, or yet again with tokens to actually own them in-game.

But Forza 5 has also removed most of the ways you would get in-game cash, currency and discounts in previous Forzas. It also shipped with far, far less content than Forza 4.